November 03, 2008

Tomorrow Nears

Sometimes I wonder what I would have been like if certain things hadn't happened in my life, if instead of where I'm at now (and where I've been) I would have remained in Alabama in the same small town in which my parents still live, if I'd chosen a path that most people I knew in high school chose. I wonder what tomorrow would be like for me, if I would have this same feeling I have now, this same hope of possibility, this same nervousness that we've come this far and we can't lose now. I wonder if I would have the same fear that my parents and many like them have, a fear that masks something else (he's Muslim, he's got a weird name, he's a socialist), and we all know what that something is.

I wonder if the Alabama me would wake up early in the morning and stand in line in the rain for godknowshowlong and for the first time in his life vote with absolute conviction and pride.

I wonder if I would have ever read Langston Hughes or be thinking of Langston and Ralph and James and Richard and Zora tonight.
I doubt it. But maybe...
I can't wait for tomorrow.

******

Daybreak in Alabama

by Langston Hughes

When I get to be a composerI'm gonna write me some music aboutDaybreak in AlabamaAnd I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in itRising out of the ground like a swamp mistAnd falling out of heaven like soft dew.I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in itAnd the scent of pine needlesAnd the smell of red clay after rainAnd long red necksAnd poppy colored facesAnd big brown armsAnd the field daisy eyesOf black and white black white black peopleAnd I'm gonna put white handsAnd black hands and brown and yellow handsAnd red clay earth hands in itTouching everybody with kind fingersAnd touching each other natural as dewIn that dawn of music when IGet to be a composerAnd write about daybreakIn Alabama.